Since the 10th edition Leagues of Votann index came out, there have been several discussions about the lack of synergy between the Lethal Hits ability (auto-wound on a critical hit) given by a Kahl when he's leading a unit, and the Devastating Wounds ability (mortal wounds on a critical wound) on Volkanite weapons (which he can take himself, or be carried by a Hearthguard squad he leads). Some claim that Lethal Hits is a debuff to these weapons. Others, such as a previous version of this article, have claimed that this is wrong.
Lets once again investigate how these rules interact for the Leages of Votann Kahl.
If you've read this article before, scroll to the text in bold red, as the changed parts have been marked in that fashion. Where I have added entire sections to the text, the headlines are in read. Thanks to Roald Hansen over at the The Leagues of Votann 40k facebook group for pointing out the mistakes in the original version of this article.
Lethal hits trigger on 6s to hit, and bypass the wounding mechanics. Such hits cannot trigger mortal wounds, as they trigger on 6s to wound to bypass the saving mechanics.
(Okay, technically these things trigger on critical hints and wounds, but there aren't any other ways for a unit led by a Kahl to get critical hits or wounds than rolling natural 6s, so we'll disregard that in this article.)
Volkanite weapons can hit on varying rolls: 2s will hit for a Kahl without penalties, or Einhyr with a bonus. 3s will hit for a Kahl with penalties, or Einhyr naturally. 4s will hit even for an Einhyr with a penalty. 5s will hit in all cases except overwatch. 6s always hit.
Let us first look at the hit rolls that are not natural 6s. These hits will never be impacted by Lethal Hits, and will trigger Devastating Wounds normally no matter if Lethal Hits is in play or not. As such, we can disregard hit rolls of less than 6 in this discussion.
What about hit rolls of 6? With Lethal Hits they bypass the Wound roll, meaning the damage output is only affected by the save. A 2+ save means each lethal hit does 1/6th of a wound damage, a 3+ save will mean each hit does 1/3rd of a wound, and so on up until a 7+ save - at which point each lethal hit does a full point of damage.
Without Lethal Hits, the Wound roll matters. 1/6th of the time, these wounds bypass the save, so we're already doing 1/6th of a wound damage from these hits - meaning that if we only wound on a 6, we do the same as a lethal hit against a 2+ save. But against toughness values that allow us to wound on lower numbers, these other wound rolls still have a chance of doing normal damage. This means that if you wound on anything less than a 6, against a 2+ save the Devastating Wounds rule would do more damage if the Lethal Hits rule was not in effect.
If we wound on anything else than a 6, such wounds are subject to the save characteristic. Each such wounding scenario will do exactly as much damage as a lethal hit would do.
So at 6+ wound and 2+ saves, Devastating Wounds on Volkanite are the same as Lethal Hits. Worse save profiles make Lethal hits better. Worse toughness makes Devastating wounds better.
As the wound roll affects the rules, having two wound tokens also work into this - making Devastating wounds better.
Example 1: Flimsy target
Volkanite from Hearthguard into T3, 5+ save. No tokens.
Without Lethal Hits:
Two shots hit. Of these, 6s to wound cause mortals (2*1/6 = 0.33 mortals) and 3s, 4s and 5s to wound cause saves (2*3/6 = 1 save). Two thirds of the saves fail, meaning total damage is 1 - One third of a wound from mortals, two thirds of a wound from saves.
With Lethal Hits:
Three shots. Each of these get us 1/6th Lethal Hit and 3/6ths Normal Hits, for a total of 0.5 Lethal Hits and 1.5 Normal hits. The 1.5 normal hits cause 1.5*1/6 = 0.25 mortal wounds (due to Devastating) and 1.5*3/6 = 0.75 normal wounds. Taking the normal wounds and the lethal hits together, 1.25 saves must be made, which gives us 0.83 normal damage. Add in the 0.25 mortal wounds and the total damage is 1.08 - Higher than it was without Lethal Hits.
Example 2: Tough target
Volkanite from Hearthguard into T12, 2+ save. No tokens.
Without Lethal Hits:
Two shots hit. Of these, 6s to wound cause mortals (2*1/6 = 0.33 mortals). There are no normal wounds as we would only wound on 6s. Total damage is 0.33.
With Lethal Hits:
Three shots. Each of these get us 1/6th Lethal Hit and 3/6ths Normal Hits, for a total of 0.5 Lethal Hits and 1.5 Normal hits. Out of the 1.5 normal hits, we get 1.5/6 = 0.25 mortal wounds and no normal wounds. The 0.5 lethal hit bypasses the save one sixhth of the time, giving us 0.5/6 = 0.08333 normal damage. Adding normal and mortal damage together, we get 0.33 damage. The exact same as without lethal hits.
Example 3: Tough target with middling save.
Volkanite from Hearthguard into T12, 4+ save. No tokens.
Without Lethal Hits:
Two shots hit. Of these, 6s to wound cause mortals (2*1/6 = 0.33 mortals). There are no normal wounds as we would only wound on 6s. Total damage is 0.33.
With Lethal Hits:
Three shots. Each of these get us 1/6th Lethal Hit and 3/6ths Normal Hits, for a total of 0.5 Lethal Hits and 1.5 Normal hits. Out of the 1.5 normal hits, we get 1.5/6 = 0.25 mortal wounds and no normal wounds. The 0.5 lethal hit bypasses the save half the time, giving us 0.5/2 = 0.25 normal damage. Adding normal and mortal damage together, we get 0.5 damage. Quite a bit higher than without lethal hits.
Example 4: Terminators
Volkanite from Hearthguard into T5, 2+ save. No tokens.
Without Lethal Hits:
Two shots hit. Of these, 6s to wound cause mortals (2*1/6 = 0.33 mortals). There are 2*2/6 = 0.67 normal wounds, of which 0.67/6 bypass the save for 0.11 normal damage. Total damage is 0.44.
With Lethal Hits:
Three shots. Each of these get us 1/6th Lethal Hit and 3/6ths Normal Hits, for a total of 0.5 Lethal Hits and 1.5 Normal hits. Of the normal hits, 1.5/6 = 0.25 are mortal wounds. 1.5*2/6 = 0.5 are normal wounds. Taken with the lethal hits, that's 1 damage of which 1/6th bypass the save for 0.17 normal damage. Total damage is 0.42.
You HAVE lost 0.02 damage for having the Lethal Hits rule. That's hardly a lot, but it is something.
Time for a table!
In this table, red shows where Lethal Hits is a debuff, green show where its a buff and yellow show where it doesn't matter. We see that if the target has a 2+ save and you wound on a 5 or better (because of toughness and or tokens), not having Lethal Hits is better. Because Volkanite disintegrators are only Strength 5, this isn't too bad. In some odd cases there is no difference. In most cases you gain damage from Lethal Hits.
Absolute worst case, a hypothetical T1 (or T2-4 with 2 tokens) target with a 2+ save, you lose 0.11 damage for every 6 you roll to hit for having Lethal Hits. Even with a full squad of 10 Hearthguard, that's 0.55 on average. You will more than make up for that when firing the grenade launchers. Or just firing at something that doesn't have a 2+ save.
This rule interaction is NOT a good reason to avoid putting a Kahl with your hearthguard. You should absolutely do so if you can!
Note that I have not done the math for other weapons than the Volkanite Disintegrators. The only other I can think of where the Kahl makes an issue is the Magna-rail Rifle of the Hearthkyn. There, the multi-damage which can cause spillover on mortal wounds does indeed mean that there may be a downside to using a Kahl in some cases. But for Volkanite Disintegrators, which are Damage 1 and have no AP, there is no downside.
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